Update on The Competition

The pictures that you have seen will be the last few of Riga itself for a little while. We have officially registered today. I saw most of the dancers wondering around and waiting to register. I wont lie, I felt a bit intimidated by all theses dancers. The dancers from Belarus arrived this morning and they are all tall, skinny and sway backed(the shape of their legs). They not too friendly, but I will keep working on them, I really want to make some friends here.

As far as I know, there are only 2 or 3 other participants entering as a pas de deux and I didn't see anyone that has chosen the same dances as me, lets hope that we are the only ones doing Flower Festival and Satenella...

The judges for the competition are:
Aivars Leimanis: Artistic Director of the Latvian National Ballet and Chairman of the jury of the 1st International Baltic Ballet Competition
Viktors Barikins: Awarded artist of Russian Federation and Ballet Master of the Bolshoi Theatre Moscow
Irina Cistjakova: Repetiteur of the Mariinsky Opera and Ballet Theatre St. Petersburg
Ekaterina Shchelkanova: Soloist of the Leningrad Kirov Theatre and American Ballet Theatre President of the International Charity Foundation " Open World"
Cyrille Atanassoff: Premier of National Theatre "L'Opera de Paris" - ballet star, professor National Order of Merit in Arts Winner of the Nizhinsky prize in 1965 and President of the International Ballet Competition Paris

There are 18 competitors in my category, including myself and the countries they come from are: 3 from Belarus, 7 from Croatia, 2 from Japan, 2 from Latvia, 1 from England, 1 from Ukraine, 1 from Somija(in Latvian) and ME from South Africa :). There are 14 girls (including myself) and 4 men. I suddenly realised that this is a VERY Russian competition!!!!!!!

Tomorrow I will have my first master class with Anton Boicov who is a soloist of the Mariinsky Opera and Ballet Theatre St. Petersburg as well as an Executive of the International Charity Ballet Foundation "Open World".

I am slightly nervous to do this class, but at the same time excited. We will be doing class at 13:00-15:00. Then I have my 45 min rehearsal at the Riga Choreography School from 17:15-18:00. Then at 19:00 we go to the Dailes Theatre where each pas de deux couple has 15 mins to rehearse/place on stage.

Tomorrow is quite a big day but I am looking forward to it. I will post again when the day is done. I'm not going to watch the other dancers practise their pieces as I don't want to intimidate myself ;)...Wish me luck xx